No longer close or friendly with someone; having become distant or separated from a person or group you were once connected to.
From Old French 'estranger' meaning 'to treat as a stranger,' derived from Latin 'extraneus' meaning 'external or foreign.' The meaning evolved from simply treating someone as a stranger to describing a deeper emotional separation.
The word literally comes from 'extra' and 'strange'—when you become estranged from someone, you're making them extra-strange to you, like a foreigner in your own life. It's fascinating how language captures the emotional distance between people.
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